Adam Massaro, Sturm College of Law 2010 JD Graduate, Wins "Excellence in Writing Award" From ABA Probate & Property Magazine for Solar Energy Article

Adam Massaro, University of Denver Sturm College of Law 2010 JD graduate, won an Excellence in Writing Award from the editors of ABA Probate & Property for his article, “Solar Power for Commercial Buildings,” that appeared in the January/February 2010 issue.

Adam walks a lawyer through issues he or she must understand when advising a client, building owner or tenant, who wishes to participate in a distributed solar energy opportunity by installing a solar generation system.

The article discusses Renewable Energy Credits (RECs); three methods for obtaining commercial solar (solar power purchase agreement with a third party developer, purchase and installation of a system, and a solar lease); and net metering (where the utility gives credits for surplus solar energy generated).

Adam writes that, “Commercial Solar presents an opportunity for building owners and tenants to achieve both sustainability and business goals.” He counsels that federal and state incentives determine the economics of commercial solar. In this growing market, Adam predicts, “more and more building owners and tenants will seek the advice of lawyers before obtaining Commercial Solar.”

Adam wrote this piece with faculty supervision in the summer of 2009. “The law school’s directed research program provided me the opportunity to work directly with a highly skilled advisor in Professor K.K. DuVivier,” he says. “She was a tremendous resource for a young law student who was seeking his first publication.”

Directed research at the Sturm College of Law is an opportunity for students to research and write on any area of law approved by a full-time faculty member who agrees to direct the project. It is one way to fulfill the law school’s upper level writing requirement.

Professor DuVivier, who is currently writing her own book on renewable energy law, reports that, “Adam took the initiative on this cutting-edge issue of renewable energy practice, and he well deserves this national recognition. I was delighted to supervise his work on this article as part of a directed research project. His accomplishment shows that an enterprising second-year law student can make a valuable contribution to the practice at the same time he is earning law school credit.”

Currently Adam Massaro is a judicial law clerk at the Colorado Court of Appeals for Judge Nancy Lichtenstein. He plans to practice law in Denver after his clerkship ends in August 2011.

Congratulations to Adam Massaro for winning the Excellence Award for “Best Technology/Law Practice Management Article,” bestowed by the editors of ABA Probate & Property.

To see the full text of the article, please click here.

Adjunct Professor William J. Brady Invited to Speak at Intersol'2011 International Conference in Lyon, France

William J. Brady, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and a shareholder and director at the Denver firm Grimshaw and Harring, has been asked to present at the prestigious Intersol'2011, an international conference in Lyon, France, March 28-31, on soils, sediment, and water.

Mr. Brady, who teaches Hazardous Waste Law in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy (ENRL) Program, will discuss "Waste and Soils: U.S. Legal Cases and Insurance Precedants." Mr. Brady has been assisted in preparing his remarks by geophysicist Pierre Andrieux, Professor Emeritus at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI. Professor Brady is also a member of the Intersol Committee Scientifique, assisting in the selection of the conference program each year. He has been a frequent contributor to the annual Intersol Conference since 2008.

Early last year, before the BP Gulf Oil disaster, and this year's major property and casualty and business interuption losses from the Australian floods, the New Zealand earthquake and the Japanese trifecta of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear power catastrophes, Professor Brady wrote:

"The looming specter of coming environmental catastrophes presents a 'worldwide financial crisis' of never-before-imagined proportions. Yet, poorly understood concepts of risk transfer cloud the future. Over the past two decades, an explosion in lawsuits concerning past environmental, natural resources damages and government-mandated remediation has erupted in the developed world. Disputes commonly arise when contaminate releases occur at industrial complexes and seaports, municipal owned or operated landfills and airports, active or closed military installations or weapons facilities, nuclear power plants and other hazardous/toxic waste sites. Corporate policyholders continue to scurry to secure insurance coverage for potentially staggering liabilities, not knowing whether their insurers and retrocessionaires will be capable of performing as promised.

The cost of cleaning up toxic waste at more than 60,000 disposal sites in the US may run as high as $500 billion, and worldwide remediation could run into the trillions, leading policyholders and insurers to adopt a 'scorched earth' litigation posture. In many jurisdictions, courts are venturing into unchartered areas of insurance coverage, knowing that the stakes for both policyholder and insurer are high. The very survival of insurers, public and private companies and, in some instances, entire communities, is threatened by staggering response costs designed to achieve a safe and clean environment.

Across the Atlantic, The Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (TEN-TEA) is charged with the responsibility of providing technical and administrative support in collaboration with the Directorate-General Energy and Transport of the European Commission. Among other things, this EC Agency ensures the technical and financial management of public works and highway projects co-financed under the trans-European transport networks’ budget. As well, TEN-TEA requires the conformity of projects co-financed by the Community with the transport policy rules and principles applicable to the trans-European network infrastructures. Development requires compatibility, interconnection and interoperability of previously diverse national networks. Future infrastructure development, and meeting the risks posed by its attendant exposures, presents even greater financial and insurance challenges.

The questions to be answered in a troubled world are patent:

Is there enough current capacity in the global insurance market to cover these risks?
Should governments in the developed world assume a lead role in creating multi-national, public-private partnership, insurance pools to meet the financial crises posed by future eco-terrorism or environmental catastrophe?

Can and should funding be appropriated from the imposition of a worldwide carbon tax to meet this challenge?"

Environmental insurance has been a crucial tool in remediating contaminated properties, hazardous waste sites, and polluted groundwater, as well as assuring compliance with US and EU environmental laws and administrative regulations. As case law interpreting policies of insurance sold in the US and the EU has evolved, billions of dollars for environmental liabilities has been made available to policyholders, many of whom initially believed that they may have had no coverage. In many cases, older policies have provided more extensive coverage for environmental releases than later issued policies. Lost and missing policies have been reconstructed from standard forms and other secondary evidence of insurance found in financial records, document repositories and archives, and accepted by judicial fiat. Consideration of the statements of former policyholder employees (many of whom are elderly but whose recollections are clear), insurance brokers and insurance company personnel has also served as a basis for reproducing evidence of insurance.

New tools will also be in focus, such as Environmental Impairment Liability, Pollution Legal Liability, Cost Cap Coverage Insurance and Insurance/Risk Pooling, now widely available in the marketplace to protect against future catastrophic environmental liabilities. This program will also explain how insurance coverage, under both older policies and more recent vintages, can assist with legal, technical and financial requirements of the EU TEN-TEA Agency. The understanding of what coverages are available, how the judicial system and the insurance industry are interpreting them, and their use in the development of US and EU public works projects is vital for those encountering our past and future challenges.

Don Smith, Director of the ENRL program, said, "Intersol'2011's invitation to Bill Brady indicates the high regard in which he is held not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and internationally. Mr. Brady has secured several multi-million dollar insurance verdicts, both after trial and on appeal, and settlements for international mining companies and U.S. municipalities. Students in Mr. Brady's course benefit from an individual who is widely respected as one of the top attorneys in his field."

The Rocky Mountain Energy Blog: Readily Accessible Expertise and Insight About Energy Issues in the Rocky Mountain Region

Anyone interested in following energy developments and challenges in the Rocky Mountain region -- particularly Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming -- should be sure to bookmark (or subscribe to) the Rocky Mountain Energy Blog, which identifies and tracks major developments and trends in the region.

Yesterday I had lunch with Kelly de la Torre, one of the blog's co-authors and an attorney at Beatty & Wozniak in Denver. The firm, which goes by the moniker "Energy in the Law," focuses on energy and natural resources law. As a result, the blog, which is co-authored by Jamie Jost, who also practices at Beatty & Wozniak, is filled with information and observations that will be extremely useful to anyone practicing or thinking about practicing in this area, or (and possibly more importantly) for businesses that are part of the energy or natural resources sector in the Rocky Mountains.

Perhaps what makes this blog so useful is the experience and insight that Ms. de la Torre and Ms. Jost bring to the project. The former practices mostly in the renewable energy sector, and is an expert on transmission issues. The latter focuses on oil and gas, thus bringing perspective to a different segment of the energy sector. Working together, Ms. de la Torre and Ms. Jost cover a great deal of ground writing about issues that are at the forefront of development in the Rocky Mountain West.

A few recent postings illustrate my point. In late February, the blog included a posting about the New Mexico Electricity Transmission Planning Report. In early February the blog reported about "a new report that emphasizes the need to include natural gas in policy and infrastructure planning discussions between industry, regulators, and policy makers."

Ms. de la Torre explained that she represents clients before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. She also regularly interacts with state infrastructure authorities in the Rocky Mountain Region. In brief, she has studied the regulatory and legislative issues involving the often vexing issues related to electricity transmission and thus when she speaks or writes about these issues it makes sense to pay close attention.

You only have to look at what Ms. de la Torre is doing, and her passion for understanding and resolving tough transmission-related issues, to have a better understanding about why many consider Denver and Colorado the center of the "new energy economy."

Don C. Smith
Director
Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program

Drinking coffee… the solar way…

Lucy Daberkow, Associate Administraive Director of Graduate Programs, visited a very unique coffee shop during a recent visit to Pueblo, Colorado.

Solar Roast Coffee was started in 2004 by brothers Michael and David Hartkop who had a vision to serve eco-friendly coffee. The result was the creation of a solar-powered coffee roaster and the opening of a coffee shop in downtown Pueblo. They now have three locations in Pueblo, but Michael Hartkop mentioned that more stores are planned… in Denver!

For information on their coffee shops, you can visit http://www.solarroast.com/

Another Possible Consequence of Japan's Nuclear Power Problems: The Rise of Coal?

The world has had only one week to digest the disturbing news about Japan's nuclear power problems. And a week hardly makes a lifetime.

But one thing is for sure -- coal may be on the way back as a power generating fuel source.

The well-regarded "Heard on the Street" business column in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal (March 18, 2011) put it this way: "Rumors of coal's demise increasingly look premature. The commodity has plenty of critics, concerned about its environmental impact. But even more-pressing safety concerns about nuclear power, after Japan's earthquake, could lead countries to raise coal usage to make up for energy shortfalls."

The column went on to say, "There are clouds to this rapid reassessment of coal's prospects. Natural gas could prove a cleaner, more popular replacement for nuclear power. Nuclear capacity shutdowns might prove shorter than expected. And governments may also seek to promote other sources like wind and solar more strongly, although these remain higher in cost and less reliable than coal."

In the U.S. coal currently provides about half of total generating capacity.

This "reevaluation" of coal's role in U.S. electricity generation follows a piece several days ago in the Financial Times suggesting that renewable energy may also be in a better overall position as a result of the Japanese nuclear disaster.

Another footnote to the usage of U.S. coal -- something which may become much larger than just a footnote as time goes on -- is the rapidly increasing interest in China in importing U.S. coal from Montana and Wyoming (and Canada for that matter). This, too, is not bereft of critics. But China cannot simply rely on its own reserves to fuel, both figuratively and literally, its enormous market growth. Could there possibly be room for China and the U.S., both of which claim to be concerned to some degree about carbon emissions, to work together towards a way to burn coal more cleanly (which benefits both) while providing the U.S. an export market in China? It's probably too early to say with any certainty at this moment.

However, former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson used to say that a week is a long time in politics. One wonders whether this now applies as well to the energy generation sector.

Don Smith
Director
Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program

Former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. Interviewed as Part of "Environmental Leaders Series:" Discusses His Administration's Energy Initiatives

Former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. discusses his administration's energy initiatives, with particular focus on renewable energy initiatives, in a new video interview now available on the University of Denver Sturm College of Law website. The 45 minute interview can be accessed by clicking here.

Governor Ritter, who served from 2007 to 2011 and who is credited with coining the phrase "the new energy economy," was interviewed by Don Smith, Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy program.

The interview provides an inside look at Governor Ritter's energy philosophy as well as the challenges he faced in implementing it. Among the key observations made by Governor Ritter are:

• The competitive advantages of establishing a renewable energy portfolio standard (i.e., a minimum level of generation from renewable sources) "are undeniable."
• Colorado is the best place in the world for research and technological development related to renewable energy.

Governor Ritter, who now directs the Policy Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University, also discusses how he came to believe that renewable energy, and "the new energy economy," should be a key foundation of his administration's work, why he supported increasing the state's renewable portfolio standard from 10 percent to 30 percent during his term in office, and how the barriers to additional renewable energy development might be addressed.

Professor Smith said, "As Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter Jr. was one of the nation's leading advocates of renewable energy. But even more importantly in many respects was the Governor's ability to translate his policy vision into legislative reality. The interview with Governor Ritter, which is now available to anyone by way of our website, is one more step in the Sturm College of Law's goal of being 'the' renewable energy law school in the U.S. Next school year (August 2011-June 2012) the Sturm College of Law will offer four renewable energy-related courses, along with numerous other undertakings by faculty and students that also will build our institutional renewable energy expertise."

"It was an honor to host Governor Ritter at the Sturm College of Law. Anyone interested in renewable energy law in any part of the U.S. -- or internationally for that matter -- should watch this video and take account of the Governor's observations. His is one of the most credible voices in the nation talking about renewable energy," Professor Smith said.

Financial Times' Lex Column Asks do Recent Events in the Middle East and Japan Portend a New Lease on Life for Renewable Energy?

Yesterday's Lex Column (March 16, 2011) in the Financial Times raised a thought provoking point about the impact of unrest in the Middle East as well as the nuclear power plant crisis in Japan: Will this perhaps herald a new "lease on life" for the renewables sector?

Lex, one of the oldest and most highly-respected business columns in the world, suggested that there is great value in "public sentiment and political goodwill," both of which seem clearly on the decline in the case of Middle Eastern oil and nuclear power in general.

"With nuclear, the largest carbon-free source of electricity, suffering a mortal blow to its reputation, it will now be harder to say 'no' to pricier alternatives," the Lex Column argued.

It seems a pretty broad statement to say that the nuclear industry has suffered a "mortal blow to its reputation" and, of course, it's worth remembering that many countries generate a huge amount of electricity from nuclear power -- for example, France generates about 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. But on the other hand, as governments begin to pull back on generous "aid" packages for renewables it may well be that politicians and societies in general will look more favorably on the higher costs traditionally associated with renewable energy.

This is probably not the best time to make any final declarations one way or another, but at least at this moment what Lex is suggesting is worth keeping in mind.

Don C. Smith
Director
Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program